Nothing Stops It Happening
by vernajast
Summary: Kakashi and Team 7 have gone missing in action. Violent little piece. Character deaths. T for imagery. Canon world, AU timeline as Minato survived the Kyuubi. Yondaime/Kakashi plus genin Team 7 and others.


**Nothing Stops It Happening  
**_a tragedy in 7 parts_

**by vernajast**

**I.**

"Hokage-sama." He didn't hear. He was gone again.

Genma frowned and shrugged, resuming his quiet vigil over the blond man.

An hour later, when Tsunade peeked into the room, he shook his head and caught the slightest waver in her calm expression before she disappeared back out into the corridor.

Two hours later, Genma tried again. "Minato-sama?" Nothing. The blue, blue eyes only continued to stare, unseeing, out of the window and past the gates beyond. Waiting.

Team 7 was lost. And with them, the Hokage.

**II.**

_If Kakashi had just carried the damn kunai from all those years ago_...but he had tried that first and ended up in his own bedroom, the kunai tucked beneath the younger man's pillow.

It had taken too long, he knew. It was obvious the moment he opened his eyes, and Shiranui blanched and called for Tsunade. Minato could see her too bright gaze glistening wetly, and he knew.

_Days, it must have been days_, and the blond's spirits fell.

When Tsunade eventually admitted that it had been two weeks since he first entered catatonia, the Hokage swayed on his feet with fatigue--not profound sorrow, not a broken heart--and flopped down onto the unused bed.

He mumbled hasty orders, rasped harshly through cracked lips: "Send Kurenai's team with Uchiha Itachi's ANBU squadron and any other Inuzuka you can recruit to this location." Scratched out coordinates, the result of those two weeks out-of-body, were hastily shoved into Shiranui's waiting hand.

And then, nothing.

**III.**

Team 8 returned six days later, empty-handed and stretched beyond their limits. Kurenai quietly made her report, standing tall and stiff before the Hokage's hospital bed:

"Kakashi was definitely there, but he must have been moved before we arrived." _The blood--so much blood--made Akamaru howl and scratch at the ground, and only Kiba's command forced him to remain. A thick, black smudge of ash set him off again, and the lingering scent of burnt hair..._

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, his g-genin team was nowhere to be found." _A pike stood in the clearing; three blood-spattered Leaf hitai-ate hung from a hook at the top; two brand new and one slightly more battered because Iruka had worn it first._

"And the ANBU squad opted to remain behind to continue searching." _Itachi-taichou refused to give up the search for his little brother. He vowed not to return without them. That look in his eyes...I fear they're lost, as well._

A second report was delivered to Sandaime an hour later, Kurenai's red eyes bleeding soft tears as she related the details she couldn't tell the blond man who had already looked so desolate.

**IV.**

Another week passed, and it marked a month they had been officially missing in action.

Minato sat before the window in his office, taking a break from signing paperwork and sorting through the bureaucratic duties that had come to occupy his free time. He rubbed absently at a black ink stain on his knee.

He had always considered himself a strong nin, able to put aside personal feelings for the common interest of the village. Objective in matters concerning his son and his lover. But when he saw the pink haired Haruno girl looking _so small_ and stumbling through the huge wooden gates, he knew he was a failure.

The gate nin tumbled back when the Hokage shoved him away. Shaking fingers clawed into the front of her tattered outfit. "Where is Naruto, Sakura!?"

Blank green eyes stared unseeing, but her lips, crusted with the dry brown rust of old blood, tried to speak.

"Sakura! Where is Sasuke? Kakashi?"

A trembling hand, devoid of nails, just bloody stumped fingers, lifted a small sack no one had noticed her carrying and dropped it in between the Hokage's feet. A single, thick word: "Sensei." A shudder. A quick wheezing breath. A whisper. "Boys."

The lifeless smile she offered finally tore Minato from his own shock, staring slack jawed at the jagged ridges protruding from her gums. Half of her teeth were broken or missing, and the blood on her lips...he nudged her jaw with his fingers, and winced when she shied from the touch but still opened her mouth anyway. Her tongue was gouged and bloodied, and his eyes slid down her small body, realizing just _how much_ blood there was and where. He was sick in the back of his mouth, swallowing, gagging again, choking out orders--"Summon Tsunade. Now. Here, take her..."--and then disappearing.

Minato and the small sack were suddenly in his office, and he dropped to his knees, dumping the contents onto the carpet--the red carpet chosen to hide blood, the red carpet that matched exactly the three Sharingan eyes that rolled across it, the red carpet that contrasted too well, too harshly, with the blue green stone of the necklace that clinked out afterward.

**V.**

For the first three weeks, Genma and Raidou took opposite shifts guarding the girl. For her safety.

The Hokage was barred from going anywhere near her. The same rules applied to any member of the Uchiha clan.

And slowly, after funerals and mourning and quiet, somber evenings in the once lively village...after Sakura's guards were removed, eventually, and the Uchiha had agreed not to press the issue...and Minato was no longer deemed a threat...

The world began to turn again.

**VI.**

The girl remained silent for months.

She would not relinquish the details of their mission, though Ibiki tried everything short of torturing her, himself. She would not speak of the boys on her team or her sensei.

Minato resented her for it. For returning when his son was dead. Kakashi was dead.

The entire village resented her for surviving. It was her last thought as the air rushed past her ears.

_And they'll be happy now._

But no one was happy about the body at the foot of the Hokage monument.

Rumors circulated that the Hokage, himself, had carried her, broken, back into the village. He had lain her on a table in the mission room and methodically clipped a piece of her bright pink hair, slipping it into his pocket.

Later, no one would question its sudden appearance alongside the other relics of the doomed Team 7 in the locked cabinet in his office.

**VII.**

The world began to turn again. And again. And only the Hokage's tarnished smile and the memorial stone stood as reminders of all that was lost.

They were ninja, and death was the living they chose. Life went on without Team 7.

[ .end ]


End file.
